What Gentle Zephyrs Fan

Poem (ed: it's James Whitcomb Riley, some of the verses are left out)

Salutation

To Benj. F. Johnson

The Old Man

Lo! steadfast and serene,

In patient pause between

The seen and the unseen,

What gentle zephyrs fan

You silken silver hair, -

And what diviner air

Breathes round you like a prayer,

  Old Man?

Can you, in nearer view

Ol Glory, pierce the blue

Of happy Heaven through;

And, listening mutely, can

Your sense, dull to us,

Hear Angel - voices thus,

In chrous glorious - Old Man?

In your reposeful gaze

The dusk of Autumn days

Is blent with April haze,

As when of old began

The bursting of the bud

Of rosy babyhood -

When all the world was good,

  Old Man.

Found in "The African Queen" by C.S. Forester. Published by The Modern Library, 1940.